Secrets - Francine Pascal

READ: FEB 11 - 12, 2012
RATING: 6 OUT OF 10

Beautiful and ruthless, Jessica Wakefield is determined to be chosen queen of the fall dance at Sweet Valley High. If she can win the contest, she's sure to win Bruce Patman, the most sought after boy in school.

The only person standing in Jessica's way is Enid Rollins. When Jessica discovers the truth about Enid's past, she knows the crown is within her grasp. She doesn't care that Enid is her twin sister Elizabeth's best friend—or that revealing the secret may cost Enid both her reputation and the boy she loves.

Only Elizabeth can save Enid from Jessica's vicious gossip—but can she stop her scheming twin in time?

Another one that I didn't read as a teenager. This one didn't have nearly as much drama as the first book, or maybe it was because most of it surrounded Enid and not the Wakefield family that I didn't find it quite so fun. It was also a good 60 or so pages shorter than Double Love, which made it shorter than some of the BSC books! I didn't realise the SVH books didn't have a standard page-length. 

As usual, this book revolved around Jessica being jealous over the possibility of someone (Enid) getting something she had her eye on (being crowned queen of a high school dance) and scheming to get it, and ultimately upsetting a lot of people in the process. Most scheming goes on in this book in a sub-plot as Lila (jealous that her dad is spending all his time with a young teacher and not her) spreads a rumour that her French teacher is having an affair with a student. But everyone gets what they deserve in the end as Jess is forced to dance with Winston, as he is crowned king of the dance, and Lila has no date as Ken realises she initiated the rumour about Ms Dalton. Nothing is really concluded about Ms Dalton so I hope that's cleared up in later books, it would be horrible to have that sort of rumour on your academic record!

An entertaining enough book while I was ill in bed, and plenty of cute scenes between Liz and Enid and Todd to combat Jessica's scheming. Oh, to be semi-innocent in 80s Sweet Valley! There's a strange mixture of sweet naivety in these books with Liz and Enid having pillow-fights and baking cookies, versus Jess drinking wine at Lila's party and cars parked at Miller's Point with steamed up windows. Plenty of hints at what teenagers really do, but no explicit details. Looking forward to reading #3! 

Double Love - Francine Pascal

READ: FEB 11, 2012
RATING: 7 OUT OF 10

Will Jessica steal Todd from Elizabeth?

Elizabeth and Jessica Wakefield are identical twins at Sweet Valley High. They`re both popular, smart, and gorgeous, but that's where the similarity ends. Elizabeth is friendly, outgoing, and sincere — nothing like her snobbish and conniving twin. Jessica gets what she wants — at school, with friends, and especially with boys.

This time, Jessica has set her sights on Todd Wilkins, the handsome star of the basketball team — the one boy that Elizabeth really likes. Elizabeth doesn't want to lose him, but what Jessica wants, Jessica usually gets... even if it ends up hurting her sister.

I have a truly terrible confession to make. While I consider myself a Sweet Valley fan, have joined a LiveJournal fan club for the series and own the much-awaited sequel, I had never read Double Love until last month. I read Sweet Valley books in the early 2000s, when most of the early books in the series were out-of-print or just not stocked at my local library. So as a result, when I graduated from the Babysitters Club on to the Sweet Valley series I ended up reading the horrible 90s add-ons, such as Jr. High and Senior Year, and the reissues of the later books in the SVH series, where the twins work as au-pairs in France and get jobs at a fashion magazine. Not REAL Sweet Valley, I know. So when I read Sweet Valley Confidential last year, I felt horribly guilty that I considered myself a fan and had never read the original, early-80s books. So I bought a used, 3-in-1 collection of the first three books from Amazon Marketplace. And there it sat on my shelves until yesterday, when I was stuck in bed all day with a stomach bug and really could not face reading any more of Pamela. So, instead, I devoured this book. 

I kind of expected that I might hate this book. I've read some Babysitters Club books recently that I missed out on as a child and they just don't measure up to the ones that I have nostalgic memories of. While Double Love isn't going to make it on to my list of favourite Sweet Valley books of all time, I do wish I'd had the chance to read it as a teenager as I'm sure that I would have loved it. SO MUCH DRAMA! Especially for such a short book. It follows the typical pattern of all the SVH books: Jessica schemes to get something, Elizabeth takes ages to figure out what she's done and then tricks her into some lame revenge plot. Of course, being thrown into a swimming pool makes up for spreading lies about your twin sister and accusing a boy of attacking you! Jessica pretty much gets away with murder in these books. But I can so see the appeal. What girl hasn't dreamed about having a twin sister? Or, if you're not American, isn't this the perfect image of what every teenager imagines American high school to be like? 

I know that these books gave me totally unrealistic ideas of high school when I read them when I was 11, and convinced me that life just wasn't worth living if you didn't have a boyfriend. But they're a lot of fun and it's kind of sad that teenagers today don't have a similar series to be obsessed over. Sure, I'd rather my daughter was ploughing through the entire works of Louisa May Alcot than Francine Pascal, but if these sorts of books actually get teenagers interested in reading then I'm not going to complain. They do have some sort of moral values, the 80s references (Liz having a typewriter on her desk!) are brilliant. I don't think the updated versions will be anywhere near as good. So, for nostalgic fun I'm giving this 7/10. 

Sweet Valley Confidential - Francine Pascal

It’s been ten years since the Wakefield twins graduated from Sweet Valley High, and a lot has happened.

For a start, Elizabeth and Jessica have had a falling out of epic proportions, after Jessica committed the ultimate betrayal, and this time it looks like Elizabeth will never be able to forgive her.

Suddenly Sweet Valley isn’t big enough for the two of them, so Elizabeth has fled to New York to immerse herself in her lifelong dream of becoming a serious reporter, leaving a guilt-stricken Jessica contemplating the unthinkable: life without her sister.

Despite the distance between them, the sisters are never far from each other’s thoughts. Jessica longs for forgiveness, but Elizabeth can’t forget her twin’s duplicity. Uncharacteristically, she decides the only way to heal her broken heart is to get revenge. Always the ‘good’ twin, the one getting her headstrong sister out of trouble, Elizabeth is now about to turn the tables...

Despite having read some really critical reviews of this book, I ended up thoroughly enjoying it. My opinion may be affected by the fact that I devoured this novel while drugged up on paracetamol and ibuprofen while I was battling a virus, but during my period of illness it kept me entertained, and that's what's important.

I'm a bit of an odd Sweet Valley fan - I started reading the books in 2000, when I was nine years old, with SVJH. I moved on to SVH, SVSY and SVU when I was 11, although my library's SVH collection was pretty poor considering this was the Noughties at that stage. As a result, I don't think I ever read any of the original, pre-100 SVH books. (Of course, I have since bought a collection of the first 3 SVH books from Amazon, much to my fiancé's amusement). So I grew up with the Wakefield sisters who lived in a world where alcohol, mobile phones and the internet existed. I never read about date rapes and high school sororities and (many) kidnappings. Perhaps if I'd grown up with the original Wakefield twins, I'd be more upset. But as it is, I'm only nineteen myself and this book provided a nice little nostalgia kick for me, back to the early Noughties when Sweet Valley Junior High covers were sporting Sketchers and catchphrases like "Whatever!"

This book is pure escapism. Yes, it's pretty awful. Pascal forgets some pretty major plot points (even I remembered that Mr Fowler's first name is George, come on!) and killing off Winston and barely mentioning Lila were pretty lame. Not to mention the number of times that Jessica says "like" and "so" because apparently Pascal thinks that's how twenty-seven year old women talk. This book is definitely not without its faults, but I didn't read it expecting to uncover a literary classic. If you're looking for a fun escape from real life and don't mind the author messing up some plot points and some cheesy dialogue, then this is the book for you.

Like others reviewers have said, this is like logging on to Facebook and finding out what your old school friends are up to. Even I, who graduated high school less than two years ago, can see the appeal in this. It's always a interesting to look through my "Recommended Friends" and discover that four people who dropped out of my high school already have kids, or that the guy from my primary school who was super geeky and awkward now has a really pretty girlfriend. Revisting the Sweet Valley girls is like looking up old classmates on Facebook, and Pascal is, for the most part, realistic. Todd does not have an amazing career in sport, instead writing the sports column in a local newspaper; Liz is struggling to make a career in journalism and is barely earning anything; Jessica has a job for a cosmetics company; Lila still has lots of money but an unhappy marriage, and so on. Some parts I didn't find so believable, such as Steven coming out as being gay, which wasn't even hinted at in the other books. Or the fact that no one had any kids! Sure, people are starting families later now, but particularly in somewhere like Sweet Valley where stay-at-home-mums aren't so uncommon, you'd expect one or two school friends to have started a family by the age of twenty-seven. But then again, how realistic is it to have nearly everyone move back to Sweet Valley? Especially people who have graduated from university and are trying to pursue a career?

As for the Liz/Todd/Jess storyline, it came of well in some places and not so in others. I could buy Todd and Liz not ending up together because even I remember them being on-again/off-again for the entire franchise. I wasn't so sure about Jess falling for Todd, but I liked the fact that even ten years later, the sisters are still fighting over a guy. As for Liz and Bruce getting together, it was a nice idea but it happened so quickly and didn't have enough build up or hinting towards it. I kind of wished she got together with the playwright from New York, but I guess Pascal wanted her to end up with someone from Sweet Valley. Also, the sex scene at the end was horrible. I walked into my bedroom one day to find my fiancé sheepishly looking through my copy of SVC, saying "I was looking for sex scenes. I only found one and it was awful," and I was inclined to agree with him. Please, even Mills and Boon have less cheesy sex scenes.

It's hard to describe how I feel about this book. It was a fun escape back into my childhood, and I'm looking forward to reading some of the original books. I'll admit that this book was pretty awful, but I did really enjoy reading it, so I'm going to give it 7/10. I think I set the bar on my expectations really low, so my surprise at how much fun I had reading this bumps up my rating.